I stand with the young, striking students
and pupils calling time on Climate Chaos.
There is plenty of Welsh weather today
cold and wet. We shuffle and drip in Castle Square.
There’s Socialist Workers, bandwagon barnacles
with their rent-a-mob bullhorn, placards and newspapers
who've suddenly had a green Damascene moment
or maybe just found a fresh bunch of impressionables.
There’s two primary girls in unicorn hats
holding their paint posters, neatly wrapped
against rain. Animals are their friends
and they don’t eat their friends. So we march...
CLIMATE EMERGENCY!
The Extinction Rebellion woman shouts in every shop door
confusing the Asian men looking out from their global food stores,
angrily waving her soggy cardboard at crawling cars.
...to the Guildhall for more speeches and slam rants,
chants of ‘Friday is the Future’
‘Keep the Oil in the Soil, Keep the Coal in the hole’
(They need to work on that one!)
As the committed head to the storm
beaten beach to pick litter
the comrades slip off for a pint
I want to shout
Dear ignorant darlings,
don’t get recruited by their agenda.
You’re not just foot soldiers in their perpetual class war.
Please don’t get compromised, like we all did before.
But this is not my gig, so I return to my quite
small economical car, the road’s roar, the
pouring traffic, the misting screen, the world
rushing by to its million oblivious lives.
© Phil Coleman
Phil lives near Swansea and tries to balance work and the need to write. At the age of 50 he's still a complete tyro at everything except juggling words.
